Thursday, November 1, 2012

Passing Away into Obscurity: An Exploration of Death and Euphemism

A
popular adage is that the only things inevitable in life are death and taxes.
It is the former that will be the focus of this essay. Death is one of the few
constants that has pervaded human existence since civilisation on Earth began.
This is probably why there are so many linguistic variants of to die in the English language. People
have always been dying, be it through natural causes, terminal illnesses, freak
accidents or executions. Through this essay, I will contend that different
causes of death have given rise to synonyms for to die. I will also explore the way that religion and spirituality
influences the way people speak of death. Examining the use of to die as an intransitive verb is
unfeasible without devoting attention to the transitive verb to kill, and I will elucidate how
euphemisms for to kill reflect a
broader societal treatment of death.

Before
deconstructing the socially-conditioned ways we use variations of to die, it is worth tracing the origins
of these variations. Louise Pound (1936) highlights six categories that
euphemistic expressions for death and dying can belong to. For the purpose of
this essay, only four will be explored. The first of these is “sentimental and
poetic expressions.” (Pound, 1936, p. 196). Examples include is out of his misery, laid to rest and passed away. Many expressions of this kind are derived from high
literature, but some can be traced to funeral celebrants or newspaper
biographers (Pound, 1936, p. 196). These expressions evoke peaceful, dignified
deaths, so it can be gauged that we would use them when referring to a loved
one’s death, and would rarely use it when making reference to a criminal who
had been executed. A metaphor of “departure, setting out, return” (Pound, 1936,
p. 197) such as gone out of the darkness
into the light connotes the idea of an afterlife and generally indicates
that the speaker of the utterance wants the deceased to ‘live on’ in some
capacity. The second category of expressions denoted by Pound (1936, p. 198) is
“flippant and slang expressions.” According to Pound (1936, p. 198), many of
these phrases originated as jargon amongst groups such as college students,
pioneer farmers, gangsters and playwrights. The idiomatic expression kick the bucket has unknown origins,
although there are two commonly-attested theories as to how the usage came
about (Ammer, 1997, p. 359). One is connected to execution by hanging, in that
a bucket is kicked out from underneath a person to let them hang. The other is
linked to the slaughter of pigs, as an alternative meaning of bucket is “a beam from which something
may be suspended.” (Ammer, 1997, p. 359).Both of these theories involve physical suffering, so it can be deduced
that most people would use the phrase kick
the bucket only when speaking about people they dislike, or when a specific
register caters for informality. Many of the expressions synonymous with to die are derived from fields of work
and recreation (Pound, 1936, p. 199). For example, cashed his cheques refers to the work of a bank teller, while his race is run is a term commonly used
in sports commentary (Pound, 1936 p. 199). The fact that such expressions have
been lifted from certain registers and applied to wider society is a testament
to the ubiquity of death. It could also be that people use such euphemisms
because work and recreation are so instrumental in the lives of humans, who
want to think of death as a process rather than as a sudden stop. A multitude
of terms have been sourced from methods of capital punishment, including hanging,
lynching and electrocution (Pound, 1936, p. 200). Examples such as go up a tree and fry are “grim in their playfulness and often only too pictorial.”
(Pound, 1936, p. 200). Hence, these expressions would be used to describe
violent, visceral deaths, and could not be used figuratively in reference to
the death of someone with a terminal illness, for instance.

Many
euphemisms for to die are used
exclusively in religious registers, as death is intrinsically associated with
the notion of an afterlife. Just as faith alleviates the fear of death
harboured by some people, death euphemisms “kill death by robbing it of its
direct and threatening name.” (Neaman & Silver, as cited in Corr, Nabe
& Corr, 2012, p. 96). When explaining death to a child, a religious
explanation can help elucidate the biological process of dying (Talwar, Harris
& Schleifer, 2011, p. 107). The death of a grandparent can be described
biologically: “Grandpa’s heart stopped beating,” and this can be cushioned by “Grandpa’s
spirit is in heaven, now.” Doing this establishes the finality of death, while
offering a way for the child to assign meaning to the loved one’s death. The
influence of religious thought on language about death is highly evident when
we consider the amount of euphemisms for to
die that imply the passing of the soul into another place. As previously
mentioned, Louise Pound (1936, pp. 197-198) highlights several metaphors of
“departure, setting out, return”. Many of these presuppose the existence of a
higher deity or an afterlife. The phrase gone
to meet their Maker connotes that the soul of the deceased is conscious. Gone to the Great Beyond calls to mind
an idyllic paradise—a place that is perhaps greater than Earth. Expressions
such as these must be used with discretion. If a Christian attempted to console
an atheist about a deceased relative by saying “Don’t be sad. He has gone to
meet his Maker,” the atheist is likely to be offended. Faith-based euphemisms for to die are most appropriate when uttered
by a person who personally knows the deceased. An obituary is one such context
where religious euphemisms for to die
are common. Vicki Oliver examined 100 obituaries from The Times and the Daily
Telegraph in an effort to discover how people depict death, linguistically
(Stockwell, 2002, pp. 30-31). She discovered that only 25 of the 100 obituaries
featured the word ‘died’. The only conceptual metaphor used was life is a battle, referring to a baby
who had “sadly lost her battle”. Thus, talking about death is a “critical
discourse moment”, or a “taboo area that needs to be linguistically
negotiated.” (Stockwell, 2002, p. 31). By using a religious euphemism, some of
death’s potency is relieved. Rather than ceasing to exist, a person is said to
“pass” into another realm.

Having
examined the multitude of words and phrases synonymous with to die, it is worth exploring the
sociolinguistic variations associated with the transitive verb to kill. The deliberate ending of a life
is, by nature, more horrific and shameful than a natural death, which is why
euphemisms are abundant when speaking of killing. Gerry Abbott (2010) writes
that the gangster films of his youth were laden with euphemistic terms for
killing, such as wasting, putting away,
snuffing out, bumping off and taking
for a ride. These expressions would have assisted the dramatisation of the
films, while dehumanising the characters who were being killed. By utilising
these terms, the screenwriters position the viewer to side with the murderers.
Euphemisms for to kill do not only
pervade the world of fiction. They are especially common in masking the harsh realities
of warfare. During the Cold War, prisoners were silenced, sidelined and liquidated (Abbott, 2010). A defining
aspect of the Cold War is that it never featured any direct military action,
and was characterised by prolonged tension. Thus, such euphemisms were
consistent with the non-violence associated with the war. In wars where armed
conflict is at the fore, the euphemisms become more purposeful and more
widespread. The neologism Nukespeak was
coined by Paul Chilton, and is used to “promote the goals and objectives of
those who support the development and deployment of nuclear arms.” (Elliot
& Reginald, 2007, p. 205). Nukespeak attempts to familiarise the realities
of nuclear warfare, and is complete with grammatical rules and specialised metaphors.
Abbott (2010) takes exception to the use of this language, as he believes it
“attempts to obfuscate military actions, to hide their mistakes and to excuse
the perpetrators.” The euphemism ethnic
cleansing is controversial because the verb cleanse has pleasant connotations which contradict the gruesome act
of slaughtering civilians (Abbott, 2010). It is a deliberate, calculated
action, and thus the term has no place outside the context of persecution. A
euphemism that has crept into conventional use is weapons of mass destruction, used to describe bombs and missiles
which have the power to obliterate large populations and structures at once.
Once again, Abbott (2010) decries the proliferation of Nukespeak, arguing that destruction is generally associated with
inanimate objects, which positions us to disregard the numerous civilian deaths
involved in warfare. In a similar way, we seldom mention the ‘killing’ of pets.
They are either put down or destroyed (Abbott, 2010). An interesting
consideration is that, upon a cursory glance, destroy seems almost dysphemistic, as opposed to euphemistically
comforting. Further examination prompts the realisation that the destruction of a pet, or of any living
creature, creates a psychological disconnect between the killer and the animal
or person being killed. By destroying a
living entity, the entity is dehumanised (and not necessarily deprived of life), constricting the potential for
empathy. While the connotations of individual expressions may differ, it stands
that most euphemisms related to death reflexively imply a foundation that was
taken away. That is, we cannot lose someone
if they were never living to begin with (Corr et al., 2012).

Fundamentally,
death is still a taboo in our society. Despite the fact that people die each
day, it is a human trait to avoid unpleasant matters by talking about them
figuratively. Hence, euphemisms are utilised to strip death of its gravity.
Many of the terms analogous with to die were
sourced from professions and execution methods, and have been recontextualised
for common use by wider society. Faith and religion have greatly influenced the
way we talk about dying, and have inspired many of the poetic and sentimental
expressions synonymous with to die.
Just as we use euphemisms to talk about dying, the act of killing is also
softened, and this reflects a human anxiety over mortality.

References

Abbott,
G. (2010). Dying and killing: Euphemisms in current English. English Today. 26(4),

About Me

This blog began as a space to rant and divulge updates about my personal life during my senior high school years. It has since evolved into a site where I provide commentary on my favourite artistic medium: film.
I also post introspective/opinion pieces (albeit more informed than those of my high school days).
I refuse to delete my early, mediocre posts because I believe in documenting a process. I am not ashamed of where I have come from.
I aspire to a career in film, arts, and entertainment journalism, with a strong focus on feature writing.
For now, I'm just another recent university graduate finding his feet in the world. I think I left them at the end of my bed.
Follow me on Twitter at @Steven_Savona.